What Makes a Sweatshirt Premium? Five Specs to Check

Premium is not a regulated word. Nobody has to prove it before printing it on a label, which is why it sits on a £20 sweatshirt and a £200 one. What is checkable is the spec list underneath it. Five things on that list tell you most of what you are paying for: the fabric weight, the blend and which side the cotton is on, how the garment is put together, how the logo got there, and whether there is a certification you can look up.

None of this requires you to touch the garment. All of it is on the product page, or conspicuously missing from it.

Fabric weight comes first

Weight is measured in grams per square metre, written gsm. It is the most useful single number on a sweatshirt, because it decides how the garment hangs, how warm it is, and how it looks after a year of wearing.

The number matters more than the adjective attached to it. On a sweatshirt or a hoodie, "heavyweight" should mean roughly 350gsm and above, and in practice 400 and over. A 280gsm fleece is a good midweight. It is not heavyweight, whatever the listing calls it. We set out the full bands, and the ounce-to-gsm conversion, in What GSM Means on a Sweatshirt.

If a listing gives no weight at all, that absence is itself worth noting. The brands that have a good number tend to print it.

The blend, and which side the cotton is on

Two sweatshirts can both say "cotton blend" and have very little in common. The blend tells you what the fabric is made of; the construction of the knit tells you where each fibre ends up.

Look for the phrase "cotton face". It means the outer surface of the fleece is cotton, with the blend sitting on the inside. Our Box Logo Premium Hoodie is 65% ring-spun cotton and 35% polyester with a 100% cotton face, so the side you see and the side that takes the print is cotton. Our Heavyweight Crewneck Sweatshirt is 82% cotton to 18% polyester, in a cross-grain construction, which is a different approach again.

Polyester in a sweatshirt is not a cheap shortcut by itself. It is usually there for stability and for price, and the ratio tells you how much of each the maker was aiming for. What you want is the ratio printed plainly, and a note of which variants differ. Heather and marl colourways are often a different blend from the plain ones, because the yarn has to be dyed differently. Ours say so on the page: the Lion Crest Organic Hoodie is 280gsm in most colours, and the Charcoal Melange is a 60/40 blend at 348gsm.

Construction, and how the logo got there

This is the part nobody photographs.

• Side seams. A side-seamed body is cut and sewn to a shape. A tubular body is a continuous sleeve of fabric with no seams at the sides, which is quicker and cheaper to make.
• Ribbing. Collar, cuffs and hem. Ribbing is what pulls the garment back after you have stretched it getting into it.
• Stitching. Double-needle stitching gives you two rows instead of one at the points that take the strain.
• Neck tape. A strip of fabric finishing the inside of the collar. A small detail, and the first one to look rough when it is missing.
• Sleeve type. Raglan sleeves run in one line from the collar to the cuff and move more freely across the shoulder. Set-in sleeves give a more conventional shoulder line. Neither is better; they are different garments.

Then the logo. Embroidery is stitched into the fabric and stands slightly off the surface. A direct-to-garment print sits flat and goes into the fabric itself. Thread cannot hold fine detail the way a print can, and a print cannot give you the raised surface of stitching. Both are legitimate, and the listing should tell you which one you are getting. Ours does: the crewneck carries an embroidered box logo, the Box Logo Premium Hoodie a printed one.

Certifications, because those can be checked

"Eco", "sustainable" and "organic" are claims. A named certification is a claim with a scheme behind it that you can go and read.

The ones worth knowing on a sweatshirt are GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) and OCS (Organic Content Standard) for organic cotton content, GRS (Global Recycled Standard) for recycled fibre, and OEKO-TEX Standard 100, which tests the finished article for harmful substances. Our Lion Crest Unisex Organic Hoodie and our Kids Organic Hoodie carry all four, and are also PETA-Approved Vegan — on both, GRS applies to the variants containing recycled polyester. Our Organic Cotton Kids T-Shirt is GOTS, OCS and OEKO-TEX certified and PETA-Approved Vegan — it has no recycled fibre, so GRS does not apply. Our youth sweatshirts carry OEKO-TEX Standard 100. The rest of the range does not claim certification, which is why we do not say "eco" anywhere near it.

Our numbers, in one place

Garment	Weight	Blend	Logo	Price
Heavyweight Crewneck Sweatshirt	406gsm (12 oz/yd²)	82% cotton, 18% polyester, cross-grain	Embroidered	From £69.99
Box Logo Premium Hoodie	288gsm (8.5 oz/yd²)	65% ring-spun cotton, 35% polyester, 100% cotton face	Printed	From £79.99
Lion Crest Unisex Organic Hoodie	280gsm (8.3 oz/yd²)	100% organic cotton outside, 80% organic cotton and 20% recycled polyester inside	Embroidered	From £74.99
Unisex Premium Sweatshirt	288gsm, 3-end fleece	100% cotton face, 65% cotton and 35% polyester interior	Printed	From £54.99

Those are the five checks. They will not tell you whether a garment suits you, which is a separate question and mostly about measurements rather than materials: there is a two-minute method for that in Sweatshirt Sizing.

Run the five on anything you are about to buy, from us or from anyone. If a page cannot answer them, you have learnt something. Ours are on every sweatshirt and hoodie page in the men's collection, in the same order, every time.